PSYCHEDELIC SUPPORT
Are you an aspiring Psychonaut? Have you read Michael Pollan’s book ‘How to Change Your Mind’, or maybe saw the docuseries on Netflix and want to have your first psychedelic experience? Or read any of the recent articles about research on LSD, psilocybin, MDMA, peyote, ayahuasca or ketamine?
Maybe you’ve already experimented with a psychedelic and find yourself – no – lost yourself. Please read on…
SAFETY FIRST!
If you have a personal or family history of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or certain other disorders, or if you’re taking certain medications, consult a professional before taking psychedelics.
GET MEDICAL ATTENTION IMMEDIATELY IF THE INDIVIDUAL IS: INJURED, HAVING SEIZURES, VOMITING, SKIN IS PALE , IS DEHYDRATED, OR IS A DANGER TO SELF OR OTHERS.
TEST ALL DRUGS BEFORE USING
SET and SETTING are critical in shaping the quality and outcome of what can be a transformational journey of growth and exploration. If you haven't heard of set and setting yet, SET is your internal state - mindset, emotions and body. It also incudes the intention for the journey. SETTING is the external environment and atmosphere you will be in during the journey, including other people.
Classified as non-specific amplifiers, psychedelics can produce a variety of mind-altering experiences. These experiences are often unpredictable and may vary with the amount ingested and the user’s personality, mood, expectations, and surroundings. Experiences may include sensations that are enjoyable and mentally stimulating and that produce a sense of heightened understanding, or terrifying thoughts and nightmarish feelings of anxiety and despair. There are ways to support your experience - first, be educated. In this time of psychedelic renaissance the internet has a wealth of information on all topics.
INTEGRATION - As important, or even more important as the medicine journey itself
Integration actually starts before the journey - it starts when you first consider exploring a psychedelic, continues in creating the setting and intention, continues throughout the journey and afterward when applying the experience to your life.
Returning to regular work-life patterns can be psychologically jarring following a psychedelic journey. You may find yourself irrevocably changed whilst everything in the 'default' world remains the same. Thus, reshaping your life to mirror the inward changes you have undergone can be profoundly challenging.
The psychedelic experience can produce a spectrum of insights, ranging from personal to transpersonal to ecological. Sometimes a person will gain a new perspective on who they are, shifting the landscape around their professional purpose, intimate relationships, and lifestyles.
Psychedelic integration, then, has the intention of bridging the practical with the mystical, taking profound, ineffable experiences beyond the temporality of the psychedelic state and grounding them in day-to-day life in the form of enduring, positive changes.
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A psychonaut may have the intention for a journey to interrupt negative behavior patterns and self-limiting beliefs. Integration would then focus on supporting those new patterns and beliefs into their lives.
Integration is also the practice of awakening and empowering each client's inner resourceful-ness in service of them creating the positive transformation they desire.
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I utilize my training and experience in body-centered trauma resolution therapy, Internal Family Systems therapy and other methods learned in psychedelic assisted therapy training to support this integration process. I consider my role in integration as that of a coach. It is a practice of awakening and empowering a person's inner resourcefulness in service of them creating the positive transformation they desire.
I am currently planning to offer group integration sessions. Please contact me if you are interested in participating in such a group.
"Your wholeness is entirely individual to you and is best considered an evolutionary process." Stanislov Grof
Psychedelic support does not involve providing or prescribing any psychedelic or other controlled substance to a client. It does not include referring to “underground” resources or recommending use.
Additionally, it is not meant to encourage or discourage the use of psychedelics. It is my understanding that regardless of legal status, individuals may choose to ingest an illegal substance. The intention of this offering is to reduce potential risks that can come from the ingestion of a psychedelic substance, and to provide support for those who do ingest any of these substances.
Whoever travels without a guide, needs two hundred years for a two-day journey.
— Rumi
As a coach I offer guidance, trip sitting and post-trip integration.
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Completed the Zendo Project Psychedelic Peer Support Harm Reduction Workshop 1/19/20
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Psychedelic Assisted Therapy training program by SCPTR 6/20
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Currently working as a ketamine therapist at the ketamine clinic - Balanced Mental Wellness.
The term psychedelic comes from the Greek words psyche, meaning "soul" or "mind", and delein, meaning "to manifest". During a letter exchange in 1956, author Aldous Huxley proposed the term phanerothyme, or "soul-revealing." English psychiatrist Humphrey Osmond countered with psychedelic which he felt “included the concepts of enriching the mind and enlarging the vision."
The term stuck and has come to include substances from several different drug categories. After all "soul or mind-manifesting" encapsulates many possibilities of non-ordinary states of consciousness.
Entheogen - "generating the God within"
A popular term in modern day, "entheogen" means "generating the god within." Psychedelic compounds naturally occurring in mushrooms, plants, or animals are often called entheogens.
Empathogen - "generating a state of empathy"
Entactogen - “touching within” or "generating relatedness"
INFORMATIONAL WEBSITES
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TripSit.me
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Tripsafe.org
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erowid.org
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DanceSafe.org
CURRENT NEWS
CURRENT NEWS
DoubleBlindmag.com published an article on June 24th entitled 'Legions of brands are putting 4-AcO-DMT in products, but the drug’s widespread availability has some experts worried.'
This is a must read!
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